Force of Habit
by Byoshi
Summary: [OneShot][FalSam][First Place for Tonesticpilot's contest] It's Friday night and you're on London's Central Line with an irritating boyfriend, two Japanese tourists and an apocalypse in gift wrap.


**A/N: For those of you who know me, you'll know that I write multichapters more than I do one shots. This is for Tonesticpilot's contest, and it's a bit of a copout because I honestly don't think I can write an apocalyptic fic unless it spans twenty odd chapters. Therefore, I interpreted the prompt 'apocalypse' in its literal sense, when translated from Greek: a revelation, uncovering etc. because it's not often one sees a fic approach an apocalypse positively. Also, this is a FalSam fic. Yes I know, it's so surprising!**

**Disclaimer: Characters are copyright to Nintendo / Konami.**

**Beta read by the amazing Crazy Foxie.**

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

**ƒøґ¢ε øƒ Hαßїт**

**o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o**

Five minutes before she called it a day, Samus Aran spun round in her wheelie chair to finally face her impromptu nemesis. She slid forwards, chin dropping to rest on the coat hanger folds of her arms and the shoulder pads of her blazer scraping shy of her cheeks. It was disastrously out of place, thrown atop a precarious heap of affidavits and court papers, but there it sat, a thirty-inch stuffed bear armed with soulless eyes.

She finally relented. "…I'm going to kill him."

"Oh, I think it's very cute."

Peach wobbled into their office, threw down three lever arch files and unhooked her retracting belt clip free from her necklace, all with an extraordinary amount of crocheting round her head.

"The thing is," said Samus, slipping back into her habitual defensive stance, "my boyfriend stopped being cute years ago. What on earth are you doing?"

Peach fought her way into her snood and grunted. "I'm trying to put this on," she muttered, "but it hates my hair and it's so _itchy_."

"Here." Samus got up and walked round her desk, happy to have the bear out of sight, if only for now. She tugged Peach's hair free. "Are you still going to Covent Garden tonight?"

"Yes, Daisy's insisting. If you want to bail on Falcon, I could sneak you into the Opera House."

"It's all right," Samus answered a little too quickly. "I was just wondering if perhaps you'd like a giant bear to accompany you on your night out."

"Oh shush, Sam, you should take it and the roses home with pride. If you ask me, your boyfriend has been a model aficionado." Peach slotted her handbag on the crook of her arm and patted away the static in her hair.

"You're not travelling all the way to Kelvedon tonight," Samus returned. "An armful of stuffing doesn't do much for the reputation of a crown prosecutor."

"Then travel fast and make sure no one you know sees you." Peach sprayed on (more of) her signature perfume and studied her reflection in the darkened window. "By the way, these are your new cases." She gestured to the three files she had brought in earlier. "I chose the pick of the bunch, ones that will really get your legal rear into gear. One use of firearm to resist arrest; an aggravated burglary case; and one charming case of the murder of a disabled person. They could use your help."

All Samus could muster was a second-long glance at the pristine files. It was difficult to trump the pleasant prospect of verbally trouncing Falcon and as juicy as the cases were, they weren't exactly unchartered territory.

"…I'll have a look at them on Monday. I can't just pick one now."

"I know," said Peach, with an air of wisdom that forced Samus to look up and double check they were definitely coming out of her mouth. "All I'm saying, Sam, is that there are people out there who have done a lot worse than buy a stuffed bear. Right, I'm off. Have a lovely evening." Peach sauntered away but paused at the door. "Oh, and Sam?"

"Yeah?"

Peach grinned. "Happy birthday."

**.o0o.**

"Where are you?" Samus barked into her phone. Her fingers were going numb in the wintry bite of the wind but her arms were too full to find and put on her gloves.

"I'm outside Holborn station," came Falcon's gruff response. "I'll walk up and meet you at Chancery Lane."

"You won't miss me; I'm the idiot with the enormous stuffed bear."

Her phone crackled to mark Falcon's heavy sigh. "You're welcome," he said. "Do you want to battle it out now or can you at least wait until we're on the train? I know how you like to broadcast your displays of hatred."

"I'm not going to fight with you," she replied tartly, "I'm going to wait for a grovelling apology."

She snapped her phone shut and hurried down the steps of Chancery Lane tube station. She wasn't going to stand outside in plain view of wandering tourists and curious commuters. At least in the station, people were in too much of a rush to pay attention to a woman pushing thirty with a face full of roses and fluff.

Or so she thought. "That's so cute," said one passing woman, and Samus heard her add to her pencil thin boyfriend, "why don't you ever do that?"

"Seriously? People actually like this kind of stuff?" Samus muttered to herself, before realising that to the innocent bystander, she probably looked like she was holding a conversation with the bear.

Falcon turned up ten minutes later. His hands were enviously free and to irritate her further, he made no move to lighten her load. "Hey," he said to her forehead, sticking his hands in his pockets. "Good day?"

"No, actually," she said, glaring at him through the thorny rose stems. She fumbled for her Oyster card, swearing under her breath when the bear could only just squeeze through the ticket barrier. As she waited on the escalator, she turned her head towards the adverts to avoid the numerous stares of the people going up.

"I don't get what your problem is," Falcon said after a minute. "When Mario spoilt Peach, you explicitly remarked on how thoughtful a gesture it was. I do a similar thing, and you act as though I've just sent you the apocalypse in gift wrap."

"I didn't say I wanted to be treated like Peach," Samus retorted, "that was your interpretation and guess what, you interpreted wrong. That's my issue here. You make these gestures but there's nothing behind them. It's just protocol, like I'm another one of your mindless deliveries."

Falcon rolled his eyes. "On the other hand, you're so damn good at your job that it's ingrained itself to be the very core of your psyche. Why do you have to approach everything with scepticism? Why do you insist on making me feel like I'm permanently on trial?" The train trundled round the curved tunnel, sending a warm and powerful current of stuffy air. Passengers ambled out of the carriage with suitcases and shopping bags. Falcon stepped on without so much as a backward glance at her.

"Is that what it stems down to, then?" Samus tossed a newspaper onto the windowsill and sat down in the freed space. "You envy my position and you'd just love it if you could blame all my shortcomings on my job, to create a good enough reason to force me out."

"Oh, I'm definitely envious," he uttered, seeking refuge in his phone. "Who wouldn't want to stand up in court in a silly wig and black bag, putting people through the mill with endless, pointless questions."

"It does seem so pointless," Samus said (more to the bear). "It's far more rewarding being a nameless post guy, ringing up couriers and licking stamps all day."

"God, you're so irritating," was all Falcon said, and the space between them flickered and died in familiar exasperation.

Samus gripped the bear tight, trying to channel her anger into that subtle move before it escaped as a seething rage of greater proportions. So far, the only good thing about her birthday gifts was the fragrant smell of the roses, which helped to cut off the stuffy, unpleasant environment of the busy Central Line and the nonexistence of personal space.

She fumed in silence for a few minutes, trawling through the years of memory and attempting to pinpoint just where she and Falcon had started going off track. She tried to recall events handled poorly and important dates forgotten, all those major bumps in the road that had thrown them off, but nothing really stood out, and she was instead left with the disconcerting implication that it might have been going wrong from the moment they had met.

Her gaze drifted to settle on the couple sitting opposite her. The standing crowd had thinned somewhat after St Paul's station and she could observe the pair safely from behind her roses. They were sat close together with identical Buckingham Palace bags and hair so black it could be blue. The girl had a guidebook in her hands, but it was cast aside as her boyfriend flipped his phone round and snapped a picture of them both.

"They're Japanese," Falcon supplied, when he incorrectly guessed why Samus was studying them. The girl kept breaking into a smile at her boyfriend's words, and he in turn was never too tired of kissing the side of her head.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes at the naivety of young love. Perhaps if that cute Japanese girl invested a few more years in her boyfriend – say eight, to rival Samus' own – and _still _remain happy in his company, then she'd surely have reason enough to gloat in public.

When Samus had only just started to bask in this mild triumph, she spotted the sparkling wedding ring on the girl's left hand.

"Seriously?" she uttered, although Falcon wasn't listening. "They look about twelve."

She started when the Japanese couple suddenly nodded and got up. The girl looked confused and was craning her neck to see what tube station they were at now.

"Excuse me," said the guy in heavily accented English. He approached Samus with his wife's guidebook in hand. "Um, we look for this station. Please help?"

"Oxford Circus?" Samus said, trying to focus on where the finger was pointing as opposed to the wedding band on his hand. "You need a westbound train for Oxford Circus."

"So you're on the right line, but going the wrong way," Falcon supplied. "Get off at the next stop, stay on the Central Line – this red one – but get a westbound train instead. You're currently going this way, see?"

The Japanese man nodded and said thanks. When the train pulled up at Bank, he picked up his bags and reached for his wife's hand. "_Shiida, oriruzo_."

Falcon went back to his phone, shaking his head. For a few seconds, Samus watched the tunnel's murky light daub harsh streaks across him, marking the old chiselled face whose contours she once knew by heart. "Tourists," Falcon muttered. "They just don't have a clue, do they."

Samus just shrugged, although she had to bite hard on the inside of her mouth to feign this indifference. She revisited the painful dissymmetry of a couple sat like that opposite them, and wondered if once they had left the train, the Japanese couple had turned round and scoffed at her and Falcon too – two time wasting old people only bound together by habit – for not having a clue.

**.o0o.**

Dinner was slow, almost mechanical. They went to a restaurant they had been to before and ordered what they normally had. Given the far-from-subtle clue of the bear and roses, the waiter did little to lighten the tense mood, and he put them at a romantic window table and lit up the pillar candle between them.

Falcon toasted to her, but their gazes didn't quite meet and the words just fell in the empty space like leaves swept aside by an idle hand. They talked, leaping across the broad lily pads of varied conversation and yet, when they left together for Liverpool Street station, Samus couldn't remember much of it at all.

"Here all right?" said Falcon. They had walked down the entire stretch of the platform and unless they wanted to walk back, they had to make do with the front carriage. He hit the button of the sliding doors and got on anyway. Their train to Kelvedon was leaving in two minutes but when Samus entered, they appeared to be the only ones in that carriage.

"It's quiet," she said. "I suppose everyone else is out on a Friday night. You know, actually enjoying themselves," she added in an utter.

Falcon shook off his jacket. "I'm sorry it hasn't been a thrilling evening," he said, not sounding sorry at all, "but some people are just impossible to please."

Samus picked a window seat and wasn't too impressed to discover the bear and roses left little breathing space around her. "You ever think," she said, feigning a smile, "we could one day have a conversation where there isn't the ulterior motive of riling the other?"

"I don't know, Sam," he said honestly. "It's been so long now that I tend to think it's our way of getting along."

And he was so unbothered by this admission, that Samus couldn't look at him, let alone find the inclination to keep talking.

**.o0o.**

As the proud and elegant social butterfly of their chambers, Peach often liked to break the ice by talking about how she met Mario, her future fiancé. It had a high success rate of moving any embarrassment to her so as to reassure the nervous guests and to be frank, only someone as adorable as Peach could get stuck in a revolving door by a poorly positioned umbrella, and still come out with her dignity intact and a date lined up to pay for her troubles.

Samus didn't have a cute anecdote to mark the start of her relationship. It was – and had only ever been – static with Falcon. He caught her eye in a pub eight years ago and they got chatting over a drink – it was as simple as that. Falcon discovered that it was possible for a woman to completely thrash him in darts, argue with a cab driver about the colour of her shoes and cry when she stubbed her toe – all in one night. Samus discovered that in front of this man – just this man – she could be coarse and refined, cruel and gentle, any points of the broad spectrum of emotional whimsy – and it didn't matter.

Somewhere along the way, she guessed her impulsiveness had left him in the wake, finally unable to keep up.

Or, perhaps, he had never been following in the first place.

**.o0o.**

Samus awoke with a start when her body jolted. She smelt strong flowers, the musk of aftershave, the foggy fragrance of somewhere outside of home. Then, she remembered. She was on the train back home, it was her birthday, and there had been a dull thud from up ahead.

"What…what was that?" she tried to say, but her voice all but faltered under the terrifying sounds that followed. She heard crunching, cracking, something like the proud trunk of a tree being blown apart by lightning; and then grinding, beneath the wheels of the very carriage she sat in. The train came to a halt, abrupt as flicking off a radio or turning a tap.

She looked up, and suddenly Falcon looked so broad, so reliable. "What was that?" she said again.

"I think we might have hit something," Falcon answered. He might have been nervous.

The train driver's voice came over the speakers. "Can the conductor please contact the driver. I uh…Contact the driver. Please. Someone."

Samus looked past Falcon's shoulder. Across the aisle from them was one other passenger, a middle-aged man who Samus supposed was a professional homeless guy. He stank of cigarettes and his two bags were worn at the seams and almost ready to fall apart.

"Do you think we hit something?" Falcon asked the man.

"Yeah. Most likely a person," he answered. "Whereabouts are we?" He peered out the window and grumbled under his breath.

"Great," said Falcon, turning back to her. "We're going to be stuck on this train for hours now."

Samus thought about going back to sleep, but the carriage's connecting doors opened to let in the conductor. He waddled down the aisle, turned to the side like a crab. "Excuse me please," he said gruffly, his moustache bristling with impatience. He went into the driver's room.

Samus couldn't quite shake the nagging realisation that someone had just been killed. She studied her empty hands, squashed against her belly to fit in the bear, and she looked left beyond her pale reflection to the darkened greenery outside.

"Ladies and gentlemen," came a voice over the speaker after a moment. "This is your conductor speaking. I'm afraid there's…well, there's been a fatality on the line. As such, there's going to be quite a delay to this service. Could I request all passengers to come up to the front carriage. We are shortly going to cut the power. All passengers to the front please, thank you."

Falcon shook his head and carried on texting. "Ridiculous."

"On a Friday as well," said the man across the aisle. He itched his beard and popped open a can of beer. "I've got to go to Birmingham tomorrow. I could really do without this."

"Tell me about it. It's bloody selfish," Falcon replied. "I just got a text from my mate saying he was once held up by a train suicide – three hours it took before it got moving again."

Samus opened her mouth to comment. However, Falcon had turned his back to her, and he had shifted his legs so that he was facing the other man. She stewed in the annoyance of being cast aside, and although she was utterly furious with him, she tried to look unbothered by it, pasting an accepting smile as other passengers began to fill the carriage's seats.

Soon, the lights went out, and the carriage was plunged into an unnatural darkness. The only sources that pierced the dark was the screen of Falcon's phone and the numerous torches the large conductor was now positioning round the carriage.

"Excuse me, how long do you think we're going to be delayed by?" a passenger asked him.

"Can't say," said the conductor. "We've put in an emergency call and the teams will be with us shortly." He tugged at his jagged moustache thoughtfully. "Can only ask you to be patient, really."

"It's not like we can do much else," Falcon grumbled. "It's a joke."

"I know," said the bearded man opposite. "If people are going to commit suicide, they could at least go about it in a less inconvenient way."

"I guess trains are appealing because it's certain death," Falcon remarked. Samus surveyed his reflection, trapped in the windowpane, and for a moment, she was at a complete loss at who he was. Outside, the trees were deathly still, and in the windless air of night shone the thinnest straws of torchlight as engineers came to the scene.

"You know," she said to Falcon, half expecting him to not be listening, "there's nothing to say it was a suicide. We're only just past Chelmsford, I think. There's a crossing near here. It might have been an accident."

The words, as soon as they left her mouth, injected a flavour of bitter frustration into the tense air round them. She knew she had a point and regardless of if she was right or not, the fact remained that someone was now dead.

If it had been an accident, then it was tragic, like the impromptu cutting of a flower minutes before it could bloom. If it had been a jump, a crazy leap for it all to end, then it was worse, for in that single act, it had been the end of the world for someone. It had been a second the world had been told in the cruellest way possible, that it had betrayed a life; and as a prosecutor, Samus knew all too well the terrible core of people that resurfaced so often.

"The odds of it being an accident are slim," Falcon answered her, "but yeah, it's possible. Meet my girlfriend," he added to the man, and he patted Samus' shoulder in such a patronising way, she nearly snapped at him. "She always has an alternative answer for everything. Something about being a lawyer."

She glared at him. Something bubbled in the back of her throat, perhaps a mixture of anger and surprise. It had nothing to do with being a lawyer, she was being human, understanding, empathising with the tragedy and not the inconvenience. She wanted to bark at him, to shout at him for trivialising her views and her job, but movement didn't come to her mouth but her legs.

She stood up, pushing the bear and roses into her seat. "Excuse me," she announced tersely. Falcon let her through, and he called after her, "Sam...! I was kidding. Stay in this carriage."

She ignored him, and using her phone as a torch, she clambered over the numerous outstretched feet down the aisle and pried open the carriage's connecting doors. As she slid them shut, she drowned out the complaints and the frustrations of edgy passengers and for the first time that evening, her shoulder muscles relaxed and she breathed out a sigh of relief.

She edged down the dark aisle. She didn't feel like she was in a train, after a while. Wondering if this was how burglars felt, touching the foreign furniture and examining the skeletons of empty seats and gormless windows, she reached the open space of the double doors and pressed her forehead against the cool pane. Perhaps, if she pulled the emergency exit lever of the door, she could leap off the train and run across the tracks to safety. She smiled grimly at the implausibility, for although she'd manage to leave the train, she'd just be on another stationary means of transport, her and Falcon, so static and boring and unexciting, stuck at a junction with no desire or ability to push themselves forwards to a happy destination.

She sighed, and her breath coated a small circle of mist on the pane. "What am I doing," she muttered.

"Don't worry, a lot of people ask that."

"Ah!" Samus jumped and she turned round. She fumbled for her phone for light but there was no need really, not when her eyes had long adjusted in the dark and the figure opposite her seemed impervious to darkness. He sat comfortably in a wheelchair, a CD walkman in his lap. It was surprising how much of him she could see, as though the moon was somewhere behind him, protecting him from the night. "Sorry," she said, collecting herself. "I...I didn't see you. I didn't think anyone would be here. They're all at the front of the carriage..."

He shrugged, easing off the implication with a small smile. "The wheelchair doesn't fit down the aisle."

She studied the item in question. It was clunky and in all frankness, it looked ancient. Samus hadn't had many dealings with wheelchairs, but even she knew there were newer, better models on the market. "...The conductor knows you're here though, right?" she said. "Didn't he at least give you a torch?"

"I don't need one." He shrugged again, and she had to wonder how he could be so dismissive about everything. "What about you? Or did the others in there cast you out?"

She smiled wryly. "I had to get some air. Well, as much air as you can get on a stuck train anyway. My boyfriend is pissing me off." She sat on the seat nearest to him, pressing a button on her phone to check the time. "I just needed to get away to think."

"Don't let me get in the way of that," he said politely.

With her gaze somewhat masked by the dark, she studied him, and was a little surprised at the youth in his face, hidden beneath dirty blond hair. For someone so young, a wheelchair seemed such an insult.

"So," she said after a minute. "How long do you think it takes for the train to pick up again?"

"A while. A lot of people get involved with these kinds of things. Line side engineers, British Transport Police..." He started to tick off using his fingers. "Civil Police, Forensic Scenes of Crime Officers, fitters who made the train...and I suppose replacement crew. The poor driver must be in incredible shock at the moment."

"...I never stopped to think about it," she admitted. "You know, we barely scratch the surface when we complain of the delay and the effect it has on us."

The young man sat back in his chair. "We're a selfish race. There's no harm in admitting it."

She slotted her phone away. "I...I'm Samus, by the way. Sam," she added. She held out her hand, but the man didn't take it.

"Link," he supplied. "It's nice to meet you."

"You too." She moved her hand back to her lap, trying not to be burned by the disregard of standard politeness. "Where are you headed?"

"Just back home. I imagine you're coming home from work." He nodded at her suit. "What do you do?"

"I'm a lawyer." She smiled at his unruffled response. "It's a great job if you want to be reminded daily how much the human race sucks. What do you do? I mean uh..."

"If I'm not too busy being disabled?" Link answered. "I'm actually training for the Paralympics."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Archery," he elaborated. "I haven't actually been selected yet, but my coach is certain I'll make it to the London Paralympics."

"As in the Paralympics five months away?" Samus said. She blinked a few times. "Maybe your coach meant Rio."

Link's mouth twisted in the first sign of discomfort. "...Yes, I think he meant that one."

"Falcon - my boyfriend - is into athletics. He nearly always does the London Marathon every year. The closest I get to sports is running to save my hide when I'm late for court."

Link ran a hand through his hair, and he remarked, "Do you always call your boyfriend by his surname?"

"Habit," said Samus. "Everyone else does. Like I said, he's a sportsman. It sounds better when people cheer for Falcon rather than Douglas."

Her insides twisted a little as she thought of the days she had stood behind the haphazard railings that marked out the route of the marathon. On some occasions, she had shouted herself hoarse for him, not because she was angry but because she was proud. In those days, she loved him for the things he could do that she couldn't, like running twenty-six miles, reaching the highest shelf of the supermarket, explaining why thunderstorms followed sunny days.

It was almost impossible to think they were still the same people, with just a few more years tacked on.

"We've been together eight years and I feel like it's not going to make it to nine," she finally admitted, more to herself than to Link. "Though to be honest with you, it really hasn't been anything for the last three."

Link looked up from his CD walkman. It was curious because he had no earphones on his person. "You shouldn't drag it out if you know it isn't what either of you want."

"I know." She was unusually comfortable. She had heard before, of course, how sometimes strangers were so much easier to talk to about the fractures of your life. She had never understood it until now, where at the sight of Link, she knew there wouldn't be remarks on how ungrateful Samus was of Falcon or conversely how terrible Falcon was. With such comments shifted over into an impossibility because he was an outsider to them, it rendered the air and words honest, which had once been the default when she was with Falcon.

Samus sat forwards in her seat. "Force of habit's pretty scary, isn't it. I think we're both just so used to one another, it never really occurs for us to split and find someone else. I can't speak for Falcon, but I know I'm a master liar. I weave my life into everything it isn't and pretend I can't see the cracks I've pasted over.

"It's like...my relationship has been on trial and I've been working on it for eight years, pouring in my everything, persisting because I don't want to hear the not guilty verdict out loud which cements my futility. Falcon's my everything. He's like a jar I've invested all my pennies in, saving up more and more, year after year, thinking it will become a fortune, when there's every chance the jar will break and I'll end up with just coppers, just tiny insignificant pieces of metal."

Link shook his head. "They do say the journey holds more value than the destination itself. You want to be more certain about things, Sam. You're in a position to change and improve your life. And that's something worth embracing, take it from someone who doesn't have it."

She looked at his wheelchair without thinking. "...What happened to you?"

"I was in a horse riding accident," Link replied. "I barely survived - I'm paralysed from the waist down - but my poor horse fell wrong and had to be shot."

"I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago and in some way, it was the eye opener I needed. You see things from a different perspective when you're in a wheelchair. Not just because you're always sitting down." He smiled, and even in the dark, Samus could see how it brightened his eyes into a look of simplicity, almost innocence. "You get to witness the finest cruelty of people but also the greatest gestures of kindness."

She wanted to reach out - to connect, perhaps, to this maturity trapped in the body of someone so young and crippled - but he shied back a little, ending any thought of this attempt to nothingness. "You have family to look after you?"

"Friends," he said. "People who have stayed with me for years, despite not all of them having the best of interests. I knew that and I kept him around anyway. Force of habit, I guess."

She offered him a sympathetic smile. "What did he do?"

Link lifted his gaze in idle thought, although it was clear he had his reply within split seconds. "Well, for one thing, he punched me." He grinned to Samus' dry comment of, "Some friend," and then he added, "I should have cut him off a long time ago. You wouldn't normally hang onto poison, would you?"

"And you wouldn't normally cut off a lifeline either," Samus countered. There was a dull pang in the bottom of her stomach as she weighed Falcon up on the scales, trying to decide if he tipped towards lifeline or poison.

It was odd, she had to admit, how whenever she closed her eyes, she couldn't picture herself with anyone but Falcon. He was static, constant, predictable and so irritating...but wasn't he also safe? Didn't his very presence mean Samus could break down the walls of self defence, take off her wig of imposing justice and let the weakness and the honesty strengthen in its frailty?

"Falcon must be worrying about you," Link said after a moment.

"Well, I'm not sure if he must be," Samus said, but the smile came easily to her face. "But I should go back and remind him I'm still on this train too. It was nice to have met you. Maybe we'll see each other again on this train?"

"Yeah, maybe." He curled his fingers into his palms and offered her a final smile. "I hope you manage to find an answer with Falcon."

**.o0o.**

Samus wasn't surprised to find that in her absence, Falcon had moved across the aisle to sit at the table with the bearded man and was now having a beer. It might have been in the wake of Link or it was just the tiredness speaking, but the sight of Falcon getting along so well with a complete stranger didn't anger her. She resumed her seat by the window, and she clutched her bear and roses tight so as to ground her in the darkness of the carriage.

Falcon asked if she was all right, to which she answered a simple yes. She waited for him to turn back to the bearded man and promptly forget about her now that the formalities had been covered, but instead, Falcon took a can of beer and tossed it across the aisle to her.

"Here, we saved one for you. David here knows Peach - small world, eh?"

Samus looked over the bear, and she watched as Falcon shuffled along in his seat so that she could join him. She watched that olive branch of a second chance unfold, and the years rewound and reformed to a potential gateway to fix the past.

**.o0o.**

Samus returned to chambers on the brightest Monday she had ever witnessed. It was, in actuality, tipping it down with rain, but there amidst the dreary sky and tired commuters was a glimmer of understanding, a tiny speck of a reminder that it wasn't quite the end. She split from Falcon at the concourse of Liverpool Street station, and when she kissed his cheek goodbye and felt his hand run across her shoulders, she felt as though the station was on fire and she was at the centre of it.

"I got a text from David on Saturday." Peach dove straight into the conversation before Samus could take her drenched coat off. "It sounds like you had an eventful Friday night."

Eventful, Samus explained to her over the pile of awaiting paperwork, was not the least of it. She and Falcon had got home at silly o'clock, by which point they were so grumpy they fell asleep arguing. It didn't really feel like her birthday at all and it certainly didn't feel like she had been spoilt rotten by the man of her dreams either.

An advantage of being a prosecutor was she could leave her personal problems at the door and bury herself in someone else's instead. All morning, she focused on finishing up her files and thinking up of a smart arse way to dig at the defence for her next trial.

Falcon, as promised on Saturday morning after a well deserved cup of coffee, turned up at chambers at midday.

"Gosh, this is a surprise!" Peach enthused, leaping to hug him the way a baby would latch onto a puppy. "Will you be joining us for lunch?"

"Actually, Sam and I have an appointment. I can tell her, can't I?" he said across to Samus.

"She's a bit absorbed today," Peach murmured (which was never tactful). "She's dealing with a particularly difficult firearms case, you see. So where are you both headed this lunch?"

Samus looked up from her paperwork. "Couples' counselling," she said, although her gaze locked on Falcon's.

Peach pulled an indiscernible face. "Oh right."

"It's a good thing, Peach," Samus said, and she favoured her colleague with a grin. "It's a bit desperate, but I'll try all means necessary because I can't lose him."

Falcon brushed off the compliment with a quiet clearing of his throat. "Hey, I thought I'd show this to you." And he unfolded today's newspaper at a marked page. Two faces smiled up from it at her, one of an elegant woman with long brown hair, the other of a handsome man with deep eyes that resonated distant warmth. "That train we were on on Friday night. You were right, you know. It was an accident. The girl got stuck on the crossing and he stayed with her, right 'til the end."

Peach's shadow fell over the paper and she clucked her tongue unhappily. "That's awful," she remarked. "It doesn't bear thinking about. Their last moments and the unfairness of it all."

Samus pursed her lips together, attempting to block out the memory of the train's collision, of the crunching and grinding. She tried not to think about that beautiful brunette on the crossing, with her husband trying to get her free before making that ridiculous yet undeniably understandable decision to stay with her.

She shuddered and closed her file. "I suppose we'd best be off," she said to Falcon. "I'll be back in about two hours, Peach."

"All right." Peach moved Samus' annotated file to the side and picked up the two remaining case files to put them in pending.

"Wait a minute." Samus reacted so fast, she even surprised herself. She took one of the files, speed reading Peach's starter notes on the case. "Which case is this?"

"One of the two you picked that firearms case over," Peach said slowly. "The murder case, remember? I'm going to pass it to Summers as it's going to trial soon."

Samus' blood ran cold as she read words that would have singly been nothing out of the ordinary but when phrased together on the page, painted a person and a shuddering realisation.

Horse riding, Paralympics, the train journey back home.

"What is it, Sam?" Falcon tried to catch her gaze in order to coerce her admittance, but Peach spoke instead.

"It's a horrible case. I shouldn't have picked it, it's obviously hit a nerve."

"It's not that," Samus muttered. She turned to the front again.

_Regina v Dragmire_

_The State charges Ganondorf Dragmire (the Defendant) of first degree murder._

_The State claims that on 15 January 2010, while aboard the 20:14 train to Braintree, the Defendant wilfully approached Link Fi with a premeditated intent to cause the death of Link Fi, which caused his death. _

"Ripped out the victim's headphones to get his attention and delivered a single punch to the head that killed him," Peach said sagely. "Terrible, isn't it. Did you know him or something, Sam?"

She started, wondering for a bizarre moment who these two people in front of her were. "I..." she said, not certain at all how she was going to finish. She glanced back at the case file, at the notes and police statements and the yellow post mortem that trivialised Link's death as a plethora of statistics. "...No," she said finally. She took Falcon's hand and realised it was the surest warmth she had felt in so long. "Just...leave it on my desk, won't you? Don't give it to Summers."

"I suppose it's a juicy case," Peach replied. "I'll get on the phone to Jody now and let her know you've taken it."

"You know me, nabbing the good ones." And Samus fed her arm through Falcon's. "Force of habit and that."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: What is this I don't even... I wrote this in a bit of a rush and in all honesty, it's probably the first one shot I've ever done that didn't take more than a month to write so I've accomplished something in that sense :) Although I never explicitly state names in this one shot, most characters in this are Smashers. Thanks for reading - I hope you enjoyed it!**


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